How To Forget
by colormetheworld
Summary: Two Shot based on "How To Forget" by Jason Isbell
1. One

"Mo!"

Maura bends to pick up the little boy as he launches himself into her arms.

"Hello, darling," she says, kissing the top of his curly head. "Did you have a good weekend?"

"Yah!"

She sets him down, and smiles at the lanky teenage girl approaching her now, backpack slung over one shoulder. She doesn't return the smile that Maura gives her, but the doctor has come to understand that a smile is not an accurate indicator of her mood.

"Hi Emme," she says, reaching to touch her on the shoulder as she passes. "How was the weekend?"

She gets a shrug in return.

Behind them, Aminah is pulling a giant rolling bag out of the back of her car. "Thanks for the help," she calls after the children as they scramble into the adjacent car.

Maura steps forward to take the handle and Aminah blows some of her hair out of her face, exasperated.

"She should help."

Maura nods but doesn't comment. She has found that if she leaves all the parenting to the other woman during the exchange, things usually go much faster.

"Colby was dry both nights. And did not have any accidents." Aminah glances past her to the car. "You got him a seat," she says.

Maura looks over her shoulder to see where Emme is buckling her little brother into his car seat.

"I...did," she says, trying to choose her words carefully while also sounding natural. "I hoped to save you the trouble."

"It still faces backward," Aminah says, as though she hasn't heard Maura speak.

"Yes," Maura says, turning to look again. "There are several studies that show rear-facing car seats should be used for a longer period of time in order to protect t b he child's neck in case of an accident."

Aminah focuses her deep, dark eyes on Maura. "You gonna have an accident with my kids in the car?"

Maura is thrown off by this question, it seems so completely off topic, and so she stutters as she answers, her cheeks flushing.

"N-No! I always make sure to drive as safely as possible when I have...the children with me."

Aminah makes no response, but she steps around Maura and walks up to her car, leaning in to kiss Colby good-bye.

"Bye, baby," she says.

"Bye, Meenah," he says happily.

Maura can see her flinch in response to his use of her name, but she doesn't correct him as she did last time. Maura is grateful for this show of restraint.

"Good-bye, Emerson," Aminah says, and there is no mistaking the chill in her tone, or the formality of her words.

Emerson doesn't look around from the passenger seat where she has settled herself.

"Later," she mumbles.

.

The drive back into Boston is relatively silent. Colby falls asleep as soon as they hit the highway, and Emerson switches on the radio and reclines the seat a little bit.

Maura has been working very hard to catalog the teenager's actions into a roadmap of moods she can understand, and now as they drive along, she tallies up the signs in her head, trying to come to a conclusion.

Emme had not shied away from her touch the way she had during the first transfer six weeks ago. A good sign.

She had not left her ear-buds in but had instead opted for the radio. Her feet were on the dash of the car, but she'd removed her sneakers before putting them there. Two more good signs.

But her mascara is much darker than usual, and her the color of her nails is a shade of red Maura recognizes as "Murder She Wrote."

These are bad signs.

"You preset the radio."

Before Maura can fully analyze all of the data, Emerson speaks.

"I…" Maura frowns. "The radio?"

"Yeah," Emme rolls her eyes but does not suck her teeth. "You put my stations for the numbers. Like...four of them."

"Oh," Maura blinks at the road in front of her. "Yes. I usually listen to NPR, which I know you don't care for, so I put some of your stations on there in case you wanted something different."

Emerson glances at her and then at her phone. "How'd you know what I listen to?"

It doesn't occur to Maura that she should hide any of her motives. "I've heard what you listen to," she says plainly. "With your mother, or in your room. And then I looked up the radio stations that play those types of songs and pre-set them here."

Emerson turns in her seat to look at Maura fully. "Why?" she asks, though it is not the tone she uses when challenging her mother over a chore.

"For your comfort," Maura answers at once. "But feel free to change them if they're wrong."

Silence fills the car, and it occurs to Maura (rather belatedly) that perhaps she has misstepped.

She will ask Jane about it when she gets home. She glances in the mirror that reflects the mirror that reflects Colby's sleeping face. He sleeps with his mouth open, just like his mother.

"She gave him Mountain Dew," Emme says suddenly.

Maura looks at her briefly. "I'm sorry?"

"Aminah. She gave him Mountain Dew. And she lied about it. She told me she didn't, but it was in his sippy, and he was acting super weird right before dinner yesterday. All insane."

Maura hesitates, considering how to handle the situation. "Did...you ask her about it?"

Emme's shoulders rise and fall. "No. I told her to go out and by a fucking gallon of milk like a normal person, and to get a bed rail while she was at it so he doesn't have brain damage and ADHD."

"Correlation is not causation," Maura says before she can help herself.

This earns her the first, genuine, Rizzoli Sigh of the car ride. "He's fucking four," she says angrily.

"Your language," Maura says, not rising to meet Emerson's anger.

"That's the other thing," the teen says, letting out a breath. "She swears around him all the time. She brought her rando friends around on Friday, and last night she made me babysit while she went out. It's her fuck- sorry. It's her last night with me and she goes out."

Maura does not miss Emerson's distress, and though the story rankles her a little too, she manages to keep calm.

"It's an adjustment," she says. The party line. "It's an adjustment for everyone, Emme, even her."

Emerson glares at the car out of her window as though the occupants inside have done her a terrible injustice.

"I know it seems impossibly difficult now, darling, but it will get easier. I truly believe that."

Emerson heaves a sigh that sounds, to Maura's finely attuned ears, like one of deep sadness, with a hint of resignation.

"I know you do, mom," she says after a while.

And then she turns up the radio.

...

They decided immediately that Maura would be the one to do the pickups and drop-offs. Three days after the judgment came through, they sat down at the table to discuss it, and Maura had said right off that she would take the kids to the meeting location.

She would do the weekend exchanges.

Jane had been gathering her courage to ask, and she seemed shocked when Maura began the conversation this way.

She'd sat back in her chair at the dining room table, and Maura could see her swallowing all of the arguments she'd stored up. The begging she'd been ready to do.

"You'll do the transfers?" she'd sounded both disbelieving and relieved.

"Of course," Maura had said, with a little more confidence than she felt. "Yes."

And so she has been the one, for the past three weekends, who stands and watches her children's other other mother drive away with them. She is the one who kisses Colby's tear-streaked face and promises that she and mama will see him "very, very soon."

She is the one who endures Aminah's insincere smile, and her cold, judgemental eyes, and the superior, satisfied smile she throws over her shoulder before she gets into her car to drive away.

But she is also the person who gets to see them first on Sunday, and the first to hug Colby as he comes running into her arms. She is the only one who has witnessed Aminah's palpable jealousy at the way both children relax when they are back in Maura's presence.

And that almost makes it even.

They pull into the driveway of the house, and when Emerson gets out, she goes to the back of the car and pops the trunk, lugging her suitcase out and rolling it towards the front door.

Maura makes eye contact with her before reaching into unbuckle Colby, and Emerson shrugs a little guiltily but does not look away.

At fifteen, she is so much Jane that it is like looking at a video from the detective's past.

Maura wonders for a moment what Aminah sees when she looks at the daughter she hasn't seen in years.

Jane is on the couch, reading through what looks like a legal document, when they all traipse into the house.

As Emerson plops down beside her on the couch, Jane slips the papers to her other side. The teenager doesn't notice, although Maura does.

"Hey there," Jane says, knocking their shoulders together.

"Hi, Ma," Emme says. Her tone is still sulky, though she looks a little brighter than she did in the car.

"How was the weekend?"

"Sucked."

Jane is getting better at hiding her happiness at her children's reluctance to embrace Aminah, but Maura still sees the side of her mouth twitch.

"Nothing good at all to report?" she presses.

"She gave Colby Mountain Dew," Emme says. She turns to see watch her mother's face darken, and for the first time since she's been in Maura's presence, she smiles.

"She what?" Jane asks sharply.

"Yeah," Emerson says eagerly. "I told her not to, but she did anyway," she continues. And then, in her rush to get the reaction she'd wanted earlier, she overplays her hand.

"I called her a cunt though, so it's good."

Jane's expression changes, though not in the way Maura knows Emerson was wishing for.

"You what?" Jane spins to face her daughter, her twin except for her undercut and the line of earrings that run along the curve of her outer ear.

"We talked in the car," Maura interjects.

Both turn to look at her.

"You...what?" Jane blinks at her, clearly having trouble with the information overload.

In Maura's arms, Colby stirs and sighs.

"We discussed this in this car," Maura repeats, "Emerson and I. She has double chores this week, and early internet tonight and tomorrow night."

Jane sits back a little bit, letting the last two minutes percolate. Maura wonders what had her so focused before they arrived.

"That sounds fair," she says.

Emerson is still looking at Maura, her expression caught somewhere between surprise and dismay. If she calls Maura out on her omission, then she has to face the wrath of her mother and a new punishment. If she keeps quiet, she has to accept Maura's ruling without complaint and still chance a lecture from her mother.

"Yeah," she says finally, narrowing her eyes slightly. "Whatever."

Jane puts her arm around Emerson's shoulder, pulling her closer so that she can kiss the side of her head.

"I know it's hard now, kid," she says, echoing Maura unknowingly. "But she wants to try to get to know you guys. She wants to try to be a part of your lives."

"Why now though?" she asks quietly. "She didn't give a shit about us before."

Jane sighs, kissing Emerson's head again. "Remember when you had to live with Nona for a little bit? When I was sick?"

Emerson nods.

"You didn't think I didn't care about you then, did you?"

"No," Emerson says, pulling away to look at her. "But you wrote to us and called all the time. Nona brought us to see you too."

"Yeah," Jane says, "but we don't know what her reasons for staying away are. We have to give her a chance, hon. She gave birth to Colby."

At his name, Colby opens his eyes, yawning. "'M here," he says from Maura's shoulder.

"Yeah, and then she left him," Emerson says to Jane. She stands up, slinging her bag back over her shoulder. "She just walked out on us. And she went out both nights, Ma. She went out like we weren't even there. And you want us to try to pretend like she gives two single fucks about either of us?"

"Hey," Jane stands too. "Hey...wait, she what?" Jane holds out an arm to stop her from walking past, but Emerson dodges her, and run upstairs.

"Hi Mama," Colby says into the silence that falls.

Jane turns to blink at Maura. "Hi, love," she says softly. She moves to them and kisses Maura, and then Colby.

"Thank you," she says, like she does every time Maura handles the transfer. "Thanks for doing this."

Colby swings his body weight from Maura to Jane, squeezing tight as she takes him.

"You're welcome, Mama," he says.

Maura chuckles.

.

_Maura meets Jane on Colby's second birthday, which is thrown at the precinct at the toddler's request. _

_She is seven weeks into her new job as Chief Medical Examiner, and watching the officers go out of their way to make a two-year-old's birthday something special makes her comfortable in a way she hadn't expected. _

_She tries to sneak out and is stopped by Detective Frost, who cajoles her back into the bullpen for cake. That is how she meets Detective Rizzoli, and already snarky, smart as a whip, twelve-year-old Emerson. _

_Jane does not question Maura's presence at her son's birthday, just hands her some cake and whispers that his name is Colby just before the singing begins. _

_When Maura gets home that evening, she realizes that her jaw is sore from the amount of smiling that she's done that night._

_In bed, she goes online and orders Colby the Leapfrog "Grow with Me" Tablet, and its entire catalog of software. _

_Three days later, Jane brings it to her in the morgue, speechless with rage, and they have a fight that ends in Jane calling Maura pretentious and Maura telling Jane that she cannot use words she is unable to spell. _

_To her utter shock, this makes Jane burst into laughter. She holds up the packaging, still sealed. _

"_So, wait," she says between laughter. "Is this for me or for Colby?" _

_And then they are both laughing, and Maura finds herself agreeing to visit Jane's house in order to help her set the tablet up. _

_Three weeks later, as they work their first case together, Maura knows the Detective well enough for a spasm of terror to run down her spine at the name Charles Hoyt_.

.

"Do you think they're safe over there?"

Maura puts her book down and takes her time responding, though she's been working on the answer to this question for the last fifteen minutes.

"I don't think she'd ever deliberately put them in danger," Maura says, knowing this is only half of an answer.

Jane sighs, leaning back against her pillow.

"I don't know how to answer Emme's question," she says. Her voice drops with the confession, even though they are both alone.

"Hmm?"

"Why now," Jane says. "Why does she have an interest in them now?"

Maura doesn't know the answer either, and so she takes Jane's hand in hers and kisses it.

"You raised two, amazing children," she says softly. "Who wouldn't want to get to know them?"

Jane smiles faintly and then rolls to put her lips against the doctor's shoulder.

"Know how I feel when it's a real bad one? When there's not a lot to pick up on, or the relatives don't care or something?"

Maura runs her hand through Jane's hair. She nods. She has seen the expression her detective wears when a case is especially hard. It is three parts stomach ache to one part of guilt and dissatisfaction.

"Feel that way when they're gone," Jane mumbles against Maura's shoulder. "Feel that way when I think about her."

Maura sighs. Jane does not say her ex's name if she can help it. She has never asked Maura how Aminah looks or acts during the exchange. She inquires about Emerson and Colby only.

"She's their mother," Maura says, but Jane sits up, fixing her with a deep, intense stare.

"No she isn't," she says lowly. "She might have been Emme's mother but she was never Colby's." She shakes her head as though the movement will force anger to override her grief.

For a moment it looks like it's working.

"Emme used to write her all the time," Jane says.

"I know," Maura replies, reaching to put a hand on Jane's knee.

"She used to be so...open, and sweet and...She was so excited about Colby being born."

"She is a wonderful big sister," Maura says. "She loves him, and you, Jane." Maura waits, but Jane doesn't answer. She stares at her hands the way Emerson had on the way home, lost in thought."

"Jane-"

"She wants 50/50 custody," Jane interrupts, looking up into Maura's face, her eyes wide. "I got the documents today. She wants the kids half of the time."

Maura is too speechless to reply right away, and for a moment, they just sit in bed, holding hands. Looking at each other.


	2. Two

_When Maura is sure that it's love, she invites Emerson out to lunch with the intention of getting her approval before officially dating Jane._

_She takes them to Del Frisco's on the water, and their table looks out onto the channel, and Emerson puts her napkin on her lap and looks up at Maura and says, "I had another mother before you showed up. She walked out on us when Colby was seven days old."_

_Maura, who is about to take a sip of her water, merely freezes, looking at her dining companion with what she can only guess is the most base form of shock._

"_I-"_

"_Mama says she was really sick. That she had to go to get better, but she never writes or calls or sends anything. Do you think that if she was dead, Mama would tell me?"_

_Maura waits a beat to see if this is a genuine question._

"_Yes," she says when Emerson continues to stare at her. "I think she would tell you."_

_The waiter takes their orders, the steak for Maura and a caesar salad with salmon for Emerson._

"_You brought me here because you want to bribe me into liking you, right?"_

_This time Maura has already taken a sip of water, and she chokes on it. It is the perfect cliche. Emerson looks pleased with herself._

"_I'd...I actually thought that you already liked me," Maura says honestly._

_Emerson's smile vanishes. "I won't," she says, baring her teeth in an awfully Jane-like way. "I won't anymore if you date my mother."_

_So they finish eating, and Maura takes Emerson home, and three days later (so as to not make it seem as though Emerson has called all of the shots), she tells Jane that she wants to just be colleagues._

_Watching Jane's face close up on her like the boarding up of a window will remain one of the hardest things Maura has had to witness. For the next fifty two days, they work cases during the day and go home alone each night. If Emerson tells her mother what she and Maura talked about at the lunch, Jane never lets on._

_Maura sees Emerson once when she and Colby come to the precinct on a school holiday. It hurts to see how much she has grown, and how long her hair has gotten. Each of Colby's new phrases punches straight to the middle of Maura's ribs._

_But she smiles and tells them they look happy, and then she retires to the morgue._

_On the fifty third day, Maura receives a phone call from Jane's number and picks up to hear Emerson's voice._

"_Are you alright?" Maura asks, her heart beating fast. "Emerson, is everything okay? Talk to me, darling."_

"_Don't you miss me, Maura?" the teary voice on the end of the phone cuts the doctor's heart in two. "Don't you even miss me at all?"_

_Somehow, Maura is in the car, turning left at the end of her street._

"_I've missed you so much, love. I'm on my way is that alright? I've missed you like a part of myself."_

_Emerson meets her in the driveway._

.

There is a sad, little playground near the parking lot where Maura meets Aminah every day, as they pull into their usual parking spot, Maura turns to Emerson and tries to smile.

"Emerson, will you take Colby to play over there for a moment while I speak to Aminah?"

Emerson frowns, surprised. "What?"

"I want to talk to Aminah," Maura repeats. "Just for a moment, will you take Colby to play on the swings while I do?"

Colby cranes his neck, trying to see out the window. "Swings?" he asks, perking up.

Emerson narrows her eyes. "What's going on?" she asks quietly.

"It isn't anything to worry about," Maura says, sidestepping the direct question, "but it's not a conversation I want to have in front of you and your brother."

"If it's about us," Emerson says evenly, "shouldn't we get to listen?"

Maura sighs. "It isn't really about you, Emme," she says, seeing Aminah's car pull into the lot. "It's very difficult to understand, but...I promise I wouldn't do anything that wasn't in your best interest."

And after a long, silent moment in which the two simply stare at each other, Emerson turns and gets out of the car.

"C'mon, rolls," she says to her brother, lifting him from the car, "let's go get tetanus." She glances over her shoulder as Maura gets out of the driver's side.

"Mom?" Emerson calls.

"Yes," Maura answers, loving the word in the teenager's mouth.

"You bring us here because Ma can't, don't you."

It isn't a question really. Maura looks up to meet Emerson's gaze, nodding.

Emme nods too. "Okay." she turns away. "Leave the bag," she calls over her shoulder.

"I'll grab it on my way back."

.

Korsak comes to get her in the middle of the day. She and Jane are not working the same case, and she is up to her elbows in the chest cavity of a Jane Doe when he enters.

She looks up at him, and his expression has her pulling off her gloves without being asked to do so. She doesn't ask what is wrong, or what has happened, just follows him out to his squad car and gets in.

The crime scene is downtown, a female drug addict slumped against a brick wall in a back alley. Korsak holds her back when she tries to get out of the car.

"She thought it was her ex," he says, continuing more quickly so she can't interrupt. "It's not. I think she's just shaken up...she didn't ask us to call you but...I've never seen her get so close to a panic attack before."

Then he lets her go.

Jane is around the corner, squatting with her hands in her hair. When Maura kneels beside her, she sees that Jane is shaking, her breathing coming hard and fast.

"Darling," she murmurs, reaching out to feel for the detective's pulse.

"S-she looks - it - she-she looks just like her." Jane's words bite off at the end like she's freezing.

"Take a breath," Maura says gently. "A deep breath."

"She just left him. He was all alone in the hospital for two days before they t-t-told me. She just walked away from them. How could she just…"

"Jane."

"We can't leave them. You can't leave us, Maura. Promise, me. Please."

Maura doesn't make this promise. Jane takes her hand.

"Just breathe now, love," she says softly.

"She could be dead, Maura." Wild brown eyes swing up to meet her own.

"She could be dead, and I wouldn't even know."

.

"You think she's a saint." Aminah doesn't even let Maura open her mouth. She crosses her thin arms over her chest and fixes Maura with her dark, angry eyes.

"Excuse-"

"You think she's a saint, and you think I'm trash."

Maura shakes her head. "I barely know you," She begins, but Aminah cuts her off again.

"Those are my kids," she says. "I have a right to see them."

"You are seeing them," Maura snaps. "No one has told you that you cannot see them."

"I deserve to have them just as much as she does."

"And if you hurt them all in the process?" Maura asks, feeling her anger rising. "If you take away the feeling of stability and love that we've worked so hard to create-"

"I love them," Aminah says, although Maura does not hear conviction. "I deserve them. And if Jane feels a way about it, that's not my problem."

"You cannot use them to hurt her," Maura says, believing she has the full measure of this woman now.

Aminah's glare is something fearsome. "I can hurt her in whatever way I please," she growls. "I can-"

"NO," Maura says, overpowering Aminah for the first time. "No! Look over there," She points to the swing set, where Emerson is pushing a giggling Colby back and forth.

"Look at them!" Maura hisses. "They are why I'm here. They are not objects. You don't get to use them as though they are simply pawns in your plan of revenge. You don't get to take them from us every weekend and then ignore them like they are dolls."

Aminah sputters, but Maura has begun, and she finds that she cannot stop.

"Emerson was ten when you left, Aminah. Do you think she didn't understand what was happening? Do you think that she didn't miss you? That she wasn't forced to grow up."

"Jane left her too," Aminah says. "She left both of them."

"Jane almost died," Maura says furiously. "Jane brought down a serial killer and almost died."

"And that absolves her of how incredibly shitty she was?" Aminah yells. "I was pregnant with her son, and she didn't give a fucking shit. She wouldn't look at me. She wouldn't touch me. She spent all her time and energy making sure Emerson was happy, making sure Emerson was safe. She drank all the time. She didn't come home, and when she did…" Aminah trails off, looking at nothing.

"So I gave her what she wanted and I walked away." The other woman glances up at her children. Emerson is watching them, her face a mask of anger.

"I thought she would come after me," Aminah says, her voice so quiet that Maura doesn't know if she's heard correctly.

"I thought she would come and get me, and we would...I...but she just let me disappear."

"You were an adult," Maura says, though the mad anger from moments ago has passed. "You are an adult, and they are just children. You cannot blame her for choosing them. You shouldn't."

And Aminah looks up at Maura then, her eyes wide and slightly shiny in the fading afternoon.

"But I do," she says boldly. "I do blame her, Dr. Isles."

_Jane cross-legged on the couch, head bowed. "I was weak," she says. "I was...scared."_

"_It was years ago," Maura says quietly._

"_My job hasn't changed."_

"_You have," Maura counters softly. She leans forward to put a hand on Jane's knee. "You've changed, Jane."_

"_It was hell, for her, I think. I...she...I think she thought we were forever."_

"_It's okay that she thought that, and it's okay that it wasn't."_

_Jane presses her fingers together. "I've changed," she whispers, a reminder to herself. "I'm different now."_

"_Yes."_

_Jane looks up at her, eyes wet but determined. "I think we could work though," she says. "I...want us to."_

_Maura closes her eyes and lets those words fill her up to overflowing._

"You can't use them," Maura says. "I don't care what you've been through or how much you hate Jane. You cannot use our children to get back at her. I won't let you."

Aminah blinks. "You love Jane enough to threaten me?"

Maura shakes her head. "I love my family in its entirety to see that you are still woefully misguided. You have suffered, and you are still hurting, but that in no way justifies the pain you wish to cause others."

"She put her fist through the wall once," Aminah says, watching Maura's face. "She put her fist through the wall six inches from my head. And the next day she comes downstairs, hungover as fuck, and she says, 'where did that hole come from?"

Maura sighs. "Aminah."

"That's the woman you're protecting. That's the woman you think deserves all you give her."

"No. It isn't," Maura says calmly. "It's the woman you left, but it's not who she is now."

Aminah just scoffs.

_The last box is one labeled "Albums." it sits at the door to the basement for almost six months, unopened and unmoving._

_Jane and Maura return from work one evening to find Emerson sitting next to the unopened box, elbows on her knees, just looking._

"_Hey, kiddo," Jane says, hanging up her jacket and coming to squat next to her. "Whatcha doin?"_

"_I'm not going to write her anymore," Emerson says. "It's stupid."_

_Jane eases into a sitting position. "It's not stupid," she says quietly. "I'm sorry she hasn't written back."_

"_Maybe it's not even her email anymore. Or maybe she just doesn't want to talk to me." Emerson scowls at the cardboard box. "I hate her."_

"_No you don't," Jane says._

"_I do," Emerson insists. "I do."_

_Jane sighs. "I hope not," she says softly. "Hate is a really hard thing to forget."_

_Emerson looks at her mother, questioning._

"_Feeling hate, learning to hate other people? It's really dangerous," Jane continues. "It starts to eat you up and take you over, and soon you don't know anything else. Soon you start to hate stupid things like...the light that always turns red at the end of the street, or the woman in the cafeteria who forgets your name every day…" Maura watches Jane hesitate for a millisecond. "The people who are just trying to help you."_

_Emerson looks at her. "Is that how you felt when you were sick?"_

_Jane glances at Maura before nodding. "And before sometimes too. I had to forget all of the mean and ugly stuff I'd learned. I had to replace the entire set in my head. It was really hard."_

_Emerson looks into her lap. She is fourteen in two weeks, and her features are beginning to thin into the teenage version of her mother; a little sour and hinting at beautiful._

"_You figured it out," she says._

_Jane nods. "You helped," she answers, smiling when Emme looks up at her, surprised. "Yeah. You and Colby and Maura. You all helped me unlearn that lesson."_

_Emerson is quiet for a long moment._

"_I don't want to look at these albums yet," she says._

"_Okay," Jane replies._

_Emerson leans against her, a show of affection that is rare these days._

"_But let's not move them yet."_

…

Jane looks surprised when all three members of her family come back in the door that evening. Emerson gives her a little smile and then heads up to her room, tapping at her phone as she goes.

Colby jumps into Jane's arms, hugging her.

"Hi, Mama!" he says.

"Well hello!" she says, looking over his head at Maura. "What a nice surprise."

"I'm a present!" Colby giggles. "I'm a surprise present!" He squirms down and goes over to the refrigerator. "Can I bite an apple?"

Jane smiles, helping him pull the door open. "Sure, Mr. Present," she says.

It isn't until almost an hour later that she gets the chance to question Maura.

"I'm not going to have to hide a body am I?" her smile is only half joking.

"Please," Maura says, pretending to be wounded. "If I'd committed murder, do you believe you would need to help me hide the evidence? There is still an Easter Egg in this house that no one can locate."

Jane laughs. "Touche."

"She's coming for dinner tomorrow," Maura says, and although Jane tenses noticeably, she doesn't respond immediately.

"Oh..kay."

"We spoke. And we decided that it's time she unlearned a couple of lessons."

It takes a few seconds for Jane to place the memory that those words evoke, but when she does, she smiles faintly and leans back so that she can put her arm around Maura.

"I know a really good teacher," she says.

"Two really good teachers," Maura amends.

"Four," Jane counters.

And Maura laughs. "Touche."


End file.
